12 Comments

Emily said,

Something similar is a plot point in A Series of Unfortunate Events— there's an incredibly boring book written as a means of hiding secret messages. In the middle of an unnecessary prolix and repetitive chapter about someone looking through his kitchen cupboards, the narrative is interrupted by a note along the lines of "insert your secret document here."

ardj said,

From a slightly different perspective: When I was at school, the prize poem one year was a piece of somewhat laboured vers libre, with notes (this was nearly 40 years after the Waste Land, but what the hell), and it made considerable play (referenced) with the invalid waiting for dawn and other people to arrive. A little later, I joined the Modern Languages A-level stream for some reason ( even living in France, I still speak the language very badly), and found "A la recherche du temps perdu", in a fine old paperbound edition (the only copy), in the Modern Languages library. So I took it out and read it, as best I could. After page 42 it was still uncut.

AG said,

…and my main realization has been that the censors were right – Ulysses is depraved. I think most readers just never get far enough to realize it. Just yesterday scenes like the insane transsexual domination one kept showing up in my feed, which were a bit disconcerting out of context (the context usually being that I'm patting myself on the back for having read Ulysses up until that point and so will accept any nonsense as great literature):